Confederate Prison Number 6The tobacco factory turned military prison in Danville, Virginia, held thousands of Union prisoners of war during the Civil War.

Civil War Prison in DanvilleFrom 1863-1865, Union prisoners of war were held in six converted warehouses in Danville, Virginia.

Confederate Prison No. 6Only one of the six original prison buildings is thought to survive. It was built by Major William T. Sutherlin in 1855. A Confederate quartermaster, Sutherlin later hosted Pres. Jefferson Davis during his flight from Richmond.

Confederate Prison No. 6 - Danville, Virginia

Danville's Civil War Prisons

By 1863, military officials in both the Union and the Confederacy were overwhelmed by the numbers of prisoners of war they had captured in battle. As a result, the eyes of the government focused on cities like Danville, Virginia, where existing warehouses could be converted into prisoner of war camps.

From 1863-1865, Danville was home to six separate converted prison buildings that held up to 7,000 Union prisoners of war. Among these was Prison Number 6, a converted tobacco factory that had been built by the city's mayor, William T. Sutherlin, in 1855.

By the time the Danville prisons began to open, Sutherlin was serving as Confederate commissary in Danville. From his beautiful Sutherlin Mansion on Main Street, he supervised the collection and manufacture of supplies for the Confederate military in his home town and also assisted in providing for the prisoners of war housed there.

Conditions in the Danville prisons were very bad. In the most extreme months when the old warehouses overflowed with me, prisoners found themselves with only four square feet of space per men. Only limited amounts of firewood were available for heat and most Union prisoners of war were used to far better food than they received in the prison. Daily rations usually consisted of a small amount of meat, coarse ground corn-bread, peas, cabbage soup, etc.

While Confederate soldiers in the field often fared no better than the prisoners in Danville, they were more accustomed to the types and quantities of food upon which the prisoners survived. In addition, the confined space in the stifling warehouses allowed for the rampant spread of disease. Smallpox and other illnesses ravaged the men in the converted factories and warehouses. At one point they died at a rate of five per day.

Citizens of Danville did take mercy on the prisoners and bring in what food they could, but because of the devastating war they had little to offer. The Union blockade of the Southern coastline had all but stopped the flow of medicine into the Confederacy and there was little the doctors there could do to help the desperately ill prisoners.

Like the Southern citizens and Confederate defenders trapped in Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the 1863 siege of that city, the men in the prisons often ate the rats that swarmed through the buildings in profusion.

It is seldom remembered today that the death rate in Civil War prisons both North and South was boosted dramatically in 1864 and 1865 by the decision of Union General Ulysses S. Grant to end all prisoner exchanges with the Confederacy.

Grant believed that the only way to eventually defeat the South was to cut off its supply of soldiers. Since the North had far more men available, he chose to let Union p.o.w.'s die in places like Danville instead of exchanging them for Confederate prisoners being held in the North. The policy cost the lives of untold thousands of Civil War prisoners.

By the time the Danville prison facilities closed with the end of the war in 1865, at least 1,323 men had died. Among them were African American soldiers captured by the Confederates during the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Virginia.

Prison No. 6, although much altered over time, can still be seen today at 300 Lynn Street in Danville. The building itself is not open to the public, but visitors can read an interpretive panel and historical marker.